Justice to Snape
by Mask of Nyarlathotep
Summary: There are SPOILERS for the Seventh book.  You've been warned, read no further in this summary.  Seriously, not a good idea.  Stop.  Reading any further would not be a good idea...No!  Told you you should've stopped, now you'll rue the day...


Okay, here is another warning. There are most definitely Deathly Hallows SPOILERS in this, so don't read it if you haven't read the book. In fact, don't read past this line, would you?

This started as a one hour one shot (it's an Evangelion fandom thing), but took way too long (about an hour and a half, all in all). Guess I over planned, or had too much confidence that I could write fast. Oh well, I think it turned out decently.

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"Go and fetch Snape."

"Snape, m-my Lord?"

"Snape. Now. I need him. There is a – service – I require from him. Go."

Lucius turned and shrank away, his mission having been firmly stated to him by his master.

Voldemort twirled his wand in his fingers, eyes fixated on its bony shaft. The Death Stick, the Wand of Destiny, the Elder Wand, the most powerful wand in existence, his wand. Having had it for quite some time, his mind had plied into it, snaking its way into its nearly every edifice.

All, save for a few. After hours of strenuous thinking he had come to realize that the wand was not completely his yet. That only by killing the wands previous master could one come to exercise the true potential of a wand as powerful and as masterful as this one.

And so now Severus came, at his beck and call, just like all of his other "right hand" men, hoping to somehow gain power by staying close to him. Fools, all of them.

Outside of the room came a loud ruckus, what his well trained senses immediately identified as fighting. Eyeing Nagini briefly, Lord Voldemort walked towards the closed doorway Lucius had just exited from.

He pushed it open and exited the Shrieking Shack, red eyes glinting dangerously as they found an intense skirmish. Having not thought that any enemy would dare come anywhere near him, he had only appropriated a few Death Eaters to remain behind, those that could not yet be trusted to perform adequately on the front lines, such as Lucius.

But Lucius was barely visible to Voldemort now, running around the sides of the battle, wand-less, hoping to escape and find Snape, therefore following Voldemort's orders.

If there was one thing about Lucius that Voldemort could appreciate, it was his ability to sneak away with his tail between his legs. But at least he was following orders, unlike the few remaining Death Eaters guarding the Shrieking Shack.

With a shrill, "_Expelliarmus_!" by an Order of the Phoenix member that Voldemort just barely recognized, the last Death Eater found himself defenseless. He looked around desperately, expecting little mercy from an enemy he knew he would not have given any to himself. His eyes found Voldemort on the steps of the Shrieking Shack, and they briefly shone with hope of being rescued.

"_Avada Kedavra!_" Voldemort intoned harshly, sending a jet of green at the downed, defenseless man. Through the smoke settling from the man's chest, he could just barely see an expression of deepest shock and betrayal on the man's face. Voldemort smiled.

The dead Death Eater's would-be-feller turned around to face Voldemort, a few of his other friends and accomplices drawing around him. Lupin's eyes shone savagely. "Even your own people, now?"

Voldemort's smile widened. "Lupin, is it?" he asked, already knowing the answer. He began to slowly circle the group of rebels, scum who had already lost, but just had not realized it. "The werewolf who married Bellatrix's niece?"

Next to Lupin, a young women's hair changed from a bright pink to a deep, deep green. She gritted her teeth and opened her mouth, prepared to speak, but her husband stopped her. "I."

Voldemort continued to circle the group, who followed his every move, so that Lupin was still facing him the entire time. "The same Lupin, who is now the only remaining member of his once pack of friends, among them James Potter, Serious Black," he smile turned to the sickest smirk that any of those assembled had ever seen, "and Peter Pettigrew?"

Lupin's face, which had remained under control the entire time, now contorted in rage. "Peter too now?" he demanded, taking a step forward, "Did he go like that man there did?"

Voldemort's smile stayed exactly as it was. "If you win, you'll get to find out."

Quickly, the battle was joined.

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Harry, Hermoine and Ron were all forced to crawl down the tunnel to the Shrieking Shack, it having seemingly shrunk since their last visit.

"We're not **actually** this much bigger now, are we?" Ron's asked from the back of their line.

Harry would've let out a laugh, if it wasn't for the fact that they were quickly approaching the exit to the tunnel. Voldemort was in there, Harry knew from his most recent foray into his thoughts, and they had to be as absolutely quiet as they could be.

"Harry," Hermoine hissed, "Put on the cloak."

Harry agreed and reached in his pocket to pull out the Hallow. But before he had done more than latch on to it, he was struck by another intense attack of Voldemort's emotions.

One instant he was lying in the tunnel fumbling for his invisibility cloak, the next he was spinning around, shouting, "_Avada Kedavra!_" at a man, seeing the green jet strike him in the chest and him falling over backwards, dead, in stunning detail.

He felt the intensity of Voldemort's concentration on the battle, his body glistening with sweat as he jumped and dove and spun out of the way of incoming spells. Through the battle haze, and the constant movement, Harry could see that Voldemort was now outside of the Shrieking Shack, fighting off a group composed of Lupin, Tonks, and a half-dozen other aurors, Order of the Phoenix members, and other wizards.

Harry's first reaction was worry for Lupin and Tonks, there was no way they could win against Voldemort, not when the final Horcrux had yet to be destroyed. But after a moment of blind panic and worry, Harry realized something far more important.

Nagini was not alongside Voldemort, nor anywhere that Harry could see from the Dark Lord's perspective. 'He must have left Nagini inside,' he realized, 'when he went to fight Lupin and the rest off.'

With a snap he was back in the tunnel, Hermoine and Ron covering his mouth, desperately trying to keep him from crying out, to stop him from making any noise that would let Voldemort or another Death Eater to find out where they were. Harry stopped struggling for a few seconds, long enough for the two of them to realize that he was back in control of his body. They released him, scooting back far enough that he could glance back down the tunnel at them.

"He's gone outside to fight Lupin and some others," he hissed, "and he's left Nagini inside!"

Hermoine nearly jumped, but restrained herself when she remembered that the tunnel had a low ceiling. "Then now's our chance!"

Ron nodded behind her. Harry finished fishing the invisibility cloak out of his pocket, then turned back to them. "Listen," he said, as seriously as he could, "let me go first, in case he's left anyone inside to guard Nagini. It's not likely, but we can't risk anything now, and we can't all hide under this cloak with it being so cramped in here."

He set off in front, the two of them hanging back until he was well ahead of them.

Harry crept into the great room of the shack, eyes scanning for Nagini. They found the great snake looking back at him, trapped within a seemingly impenetrable cage filled with water and Nagini's slithering body.

Ron and Hermoine entered the room shortly later, to find Harry standing just a few inches away from the transparent cage, looked in a starring contest with Nagini. "What'd you take the cloak off for Harry?" Ron asked.

"Because-" Harry was cut off as a dark, masked figure bounded out of the darker corners of the room and tackled him. Ron and Hermoine raised their wands and pointed them at the two struggling figures, but could not use magic for fear of hitting Harry.

The fight ended with a sickening crack as the hooded figure punched Harry in the nose, breaking it soundly. Blood shot everywhere as the hooded figure drew up over Harry, only stopping Ron and Hermoine from stunning him, her or it by pulling out its own wand and tapping it serenely against Harry's head.

"Now, now, children," came Severus Snape's all to familiar, and loathing, voice, "let's drop those wands or else Harry here will start bleeding quite a bit more than he is now."

Defeated, Ron and Hermoine lowered their wands, though they did not yet drop them. Snape ignored this small infraction, knowing all too well that they would not try anything while they had Harry's life within his grasp. Removing his mask, he pulled Harry up and in front of him as a human shield, his wand touching just below his right ear.

Hermoine and Ron's eyes flashed between Harry, Snape and the ever coiling and uncoiling Nagini. Outside, they could still hear the sounds of the battle taking place between Voldemort and the surely draining number of rebels.

Harry gritted his teeth and tried to struggle out of the way, hoping Ron or Hermoine would risk a shot at Snape when he moved, but Snape had him held too well. Without even speaking, he applied a full body bind to Harry, stopping his struggling immediately.

"You shouldn't have come here," he hissed, "the Dark Lord is just outside, if he were to come in here now-" he cut off, surprising Harry.

"Come in here now what?" Harry demanded angrily, "you'd turn me over to him? Or maybe kill me yourself, just like you did to Dumbeldore."

Snape closed his eyes, though Harry could not see it. His breathing slowed down from the quick staccato it had been moments earlier, after their struggle, and returned to a cool, measured pace. "Dumbeldore's death had an importance you did not know, **boy**," he sharply stated, "It has allowed me-

"It has allowed you what?" Harry interrupted, his voice choked full of anger, though he dared not speak too loudly since he did not want to hasten Voldemort's return, his eyes beginning to glisten as he remembered that night, nearly a year ago already, "To give Voldemort the Elder Wand? To gain power for yourself? To-"

"Do not speak out of turn boy," Snape barked, though it did not stop Harry for a moment.

"And I suppose now you're going to tell me that Dumbeldore **wanted** you to kill him? That you've actually been looking after the best interests of the Order, all this time? Well I won't believe it for one second Snape, I'm through with your sick lies, I'm through with trusting you like Dumbeldore did! Well I've got news for you Snape, while you've been at his side, terrorizing who knows how many people and killing countless others, we've been fighting for Dumbeldore's cause!"

"Good," Snape spat, and this really did stop Harry's mouth, "I'm glad we can reach an agreement on something Potter, because I'm tired of listening to your bullshit as well."

Harry's mouth suddenly felt very dry, like he could not speak, no matter how important his words might be.

"You think you've had a tough time? Ha! Don't make me laugh, boy," Snape's voice was below a whisper now, so that even Ron and Hermoine, just a few steps away from the two of them, could not hear, and Harry himself had to strain.

And then Harry felt something poke him I the middle of the back, hard. It stayed there for a moment, and he was senseless why. Then he felt it slowly traveling downwards, until it reached his pants. He felt a slight rummaging in his right, back pocket for a few seconds, and then nothing.

Looking back at Ron and Hermoine, they seemed shocked, eyes wide and mouths fallen open in what would've been a comical way at another time. It seemed, for a few brief seconds, that they were under some sort of paralysis spell, cast when they hadn't been paying attention.

Then the front door banged open.

Snape, moving faster than Harry, Ron or Hermoine had ever seen someone move, flipped Harry around and threw him at the other two, sending all three crashing into the corner in a heap. Without a word, on anyone's part Harry's invisibility cloak, which had been returned to his pocket when he took it off, drifted back out and onto him, covering all three of them completely.

It was just in the knick of time. The door to the great room flew open and Voldemort entered, speckled lightly with the blood of his fallen enemies. His eyes glanced around, as if he expected to see something, but then they settled on Snape, who's facial expression and body posture seemed to be as calm and tranquil ever. "My Lord, you summoned me?"

"How did you get in here?" Voldemort demanded, unhappy to find that anyone had succeeded in getting this close to Nagini.

"There is a back entrance, a tunnel, that comes from the school grounds, my Lord."

"I see," Voldemort made a small smile, "trust you to know of these things Snape."

Snape inclined his head and body in a small bow, "I do as I can, my Lord."

In the corner the three intruders were perfectly still, both from knowing that if they moved that they might draw attention to themselves, and from shock that Snape had not yet revealed them to Voldemort. 'It doesn't make sense,' was all Harry could think, 'why hasn't he shown us to him yet? He won't be happy when he finds Snape's been hiding us from him. . .'

"I have a problem, Severus," said Voldemort softly.

"My lord?" said Snape.

Then everything happened at once. Nagini opened its mouth and began a steely hiss, directed at Voldemort. Harry immediately recognized it as parceltounge, the first few words sounding like, "Potter is-"

But then Nagini was cut off as Snape whipped out his wand and pointed it at the cage and colossal snake, shouting, "_FiendeFyrus!_", causing an incredibly hot blast of flame shot out of his wand, blasting through the shielding apparatus in an instant and wasting Nagini away to dust.

Voldemort, likewise, moved. He dove away from the Fiendfyre blast, away from Nagini, but in the general direction of Harry, Ron and Hermoine. As he dove, he pulled his own wand, the Elder Wand, and pointed it at Snape. As he hit the floor and ricocheted back up he bellowed, "_Avada Kedavra!_"

Harry's mind was in a state of absolute shock and confusion. Why had Snape not revealed that he was there? Why had he just destroyed Nagini like that, guaranteeing his own death? Everything seemed so wrong, like everything Harry had ever known or felt about Snape had been completely incorrect.

But, as Voldemort's killing curse drew ever nearer to Snape's chest, Harry would forever swear that he could see Snape looking in his direction, with that same smirking, expecting look that Harry had come to hate from his classes with his former teacher.

But then time returned, and in a rush, as if it needed to make up for a loss of itself. The spell hit Snape, and he collapsed onto the floor for but an instant, before the Fiendfyre he had conjured rolled over his body, obliterating any sign that he had ever stood there.

Voldemort shouted another spell, which sounded like a counter-action to the Fiendfyre spell, and the stampede of inferno simply ceased to be. Standing up and brushing himself off, Voldemort eyed the spot where Snape had been with distaste, before turning to where Nagini had been.

"No, no, no, no!" He screamed as he sank to his feet and picked up Nagini's few remaining ashes, a black powdery dust that ran through his fingers quickly. His face, so often either expressionless, angered, or arrogant, was now almost completely despair, with (as ever) a few tinges of anger.

For a long moment, no one in the room moved, Voldemort left to his thoughts while Harry, Hermoine, and Ron dared to even breathe.

Then Voldemort stood, having composed himself, and swept from the room.

After Voldemort left, Harry stood and immediately reached into his pocket, wondering just what the hell had Snape had done to him. His hand clasped around a vial and he pulled it out, gasping at the swirling memories inside.

However, not long after Voldemort had left, his voice returned, ordering his troops to fall back and regroup, and that Harry should come to the forest as soon as possible, so as to prevent further bloodshed.

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Well, there you go. I didn't think Lupin and Tonk's deaths got justice in the book, it was just like "They're dead". That was the first part, at least this way we get to see how they died.

Snape, my favorite character, sort of got the shaft in the book. The scene in the beginning was really good, then he got ignored for a long while, then he was back for a short scene, then he ended up dead. It also seemed to me like he was utterly and entirely OOC in his death scene, like you could actually see that he was worried and such. Maybe this does a better job, maybe not.

But, in the end, he was a hero. Just not quite as blatantly as I've done it here.

Take the ending of the rest of the book the same after this. I suck at closure, and right now I have little interest in extending it. I might do a second chapter at some point, depending on whether or not anyone thinks I should.


End file.
